A Sportsman that God created on a Sunday..

Manchester

15-09-2022

To Roger, 

        I will not ask 'why' because everyone knows it was inevitable. Many thought you might give it another shot at a slam, preferably at Wimbledon. I personally believed that you will play Laver Cup for the reunion and then hang up your boots in Basel where you have loved to entertain the adoring home fan base over the years. But then, the knee started to cause problems once again and you chose 15th September to be the day to call it. I have always wished an endless career for you and I still pray to god for a fitter Roger Federer but I know that it is the avid fan inside me that keeps on thinking about the impractical. Now that you've announced the retirement and I retrospect on the stupid wish, I understand that it was becoming just too much for you in the last 12 months. The knee had taken its toll over the years and it just could not take anymore. You always made the right decisions, whether it was playing the drop shot at the right time or serving it big on the second serve or changing the direction and unleashing that beautiful backhand down the line. I am sure you have taken this decision at the right time just like your forehand because unlike the backhand occasionally, you never mistimed the forehand, did you?

        I started watching tennis because of you, Andy Roddick, and Leyton Hewitt in the early 2000s. It is fair to say that you destroyed all of them with disdain. The very first memory I have of watching you play was the Wimbledon Final between you and Andy in 2004 and the fondest memory I have is you playing the same guy 5 years later on the same court. I watched all your matches sitting besides my grandfather who was a massive Pete Sampras fan and he was not impressed with what you did to Pete on Centre Court in 2001. But slowly and steadily, him like millions of others became used to watching you win and more importantly entertain the audience. You are a magician with a tennis racket, aren't you? I mean apart from the forehand, slice and the ridiculously good serve you had, the way you played big points on the grandest of stages is what everyone will remember. For me, the best shot you ever hit was in the 4th set tiebreak against Rafa in 2008 Wimbledon Final. Rafa having hit a sumptuous forehand with plenty of spin and approaching the net to finish off with a drop volley on Championship point, how on earth did you make a backhand pass winner from three feet behind the baseline? When most people would go for a defensive lob in such a situation just to stay in the rally and hope for the opponent to miss a smash, you chose to hit a winner from your weaker attribute. I don't know how you did it. I was only 11 back then but I still remember it as if it happened yesterday. The moments are countless, the memories are endless.

        The word 'talent' is thrown around too easily with you. With the amount of natural abilities you have, I do believe that the God created you on a Sunday. God took time to create Roger Federer but people tend to ignore the hard work that you put in to turn many more sundays into championship winning sundays over the last 24 years. Talent might have helped you in hitting a great forehand or a great drop shot or an unimaginable tweener but it would never have helped you in playing the big points the way you did. Winning does not come with talent, winning is a mentality which you developed by working hard.

        The most difficult thing to achieve in any sport is to stay relevant and you stayed relevant over three generations of tennis pros. From the days of Sampras and Agassi when tennis was dominated by serve and volley to the more modern age of tennis where it has become a lot more physical with longer rallies, you kept winning throughout which to me is a more significant achievement than all of your titles. But today is not a day to talk about how many slams you won or masters 1000s or any other of the 103 titles, it's about the legacy that you have left behind. 50 years down the line, people will not remember every one of your titles apart from a few special ones. You played over 1500 professional matches and today is not a day to talk about any one of them. 20 grand slams? Of course they count but what is far more important is the reason you made people fall in love with tennis. When you won a set 8-6 in a tiebreaker, it is set to Federer 7-6 on the scoreboard. What it doesn't show is the down the line forehand pass you managed to curl it back in, on set point down when the opponent was covering the line. What the scoreboard doesn't show is the 100 mph second serve ace that you chose to hit on 0-40 down. The score shows the result of the match but it never tells the full story. In your case, the record books will not tell about the perfection and the fierceness of the forehand. The stats can not show the grace of your backhand, probably the most beautiful backhand in the history of tennis. Numbers can not portray the smooth motion of your serve or the finesse and the feel on the drop or the curve on the slice, someone described it as the deadliest slice in tennis history. 

        Today is the day to celebrate your legend and what you did for the sport of tennis. Tennis is a noble sport and you played it with honour. You are the greatest master to have ever graced this game and yet you looked upon tennis as a servanthood. When you won in Cincinnati in 2017, you finally said in an interview that you might have played the 'perfect' tennis because you did not lose a set or even had your serve broken. You have always sought perfection and you had to do this perfectly, didn't you? I was at work and the first thing I saw when I checked my Instagram feed was your post. I knew as soon as I saw the post that it was about the end. I had tears rolling down my eyes when I listened to it in your voice. I did cry yesterday but I realised how grateful and privileged I am to have witnessed 18 of the 24 years of the greatest tennis player of all time. They say 'Don't cry because its over, smile because it happened'. After next week, I will be one of the many people who can proudly tell future generations that "Yes, Roger Federer happened, it happened for 24 years and I witnessed the most and the best part of it" 

I went to Wimbledon for the very first time this year and watched Rafa and Serena, two of the all-time greats, on the Centre Court. Yet there was a void that nobody could see but everyone could feel. If I am not being offensive, I would explain the feeling as visiting a temple without God in it. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have an opportunity to witness you grace the tennis court for the last time as a professional at Laver Cup. On behalf of everyone, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the beautiful memories, the edge of the seat moments and for being an inspiration to everyone. I hope to meet you one fine day and almost complete my life.

Thank you, Roger, it’s been a pleasure.

Gandhar